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| Please-take-Assange-to-Stockholm syndrome. It's the diplomat's disease | Please-take-Assange-to-Stockholm syndrome. It's the diplomat's disease |
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| Modern etiquette dictates that you can't even say Hamlet is a tragedy unless you preface the revelation with the phrase "spoiler alert". So I won't say which specific Agatha Christie mystery it is where all the characters commit the murder. But the notion of the "alldunnit" comes to mind every time I think of those poor Ecuadorian embassy staff, holed up for more than six months at close quarters with Julian Assange. I've half a mind to rush out a very bad play set in a fictional version of that most claustrophobic-sounding embassy, in which everyone from cleaner to ambassador is driven to wielding the knife on perhaps the most rapidly oxidising figure of the age. | Modern etiquette dictates that you can't even say Hamlet is a tragedy unless you preface the revelation with the phrase "spoiler alert". So I won't say which specific Agatha Christie mystery it is where all the characters commit the murder. But the notion of the "alldunnit" comes to mind every time I think of those poor Ecuadorian embassy staff, holed up for more than six months at close quarters with Julian Assange. I've half a mind to rush out a very bad play set in a fictional version of that most claustrophobic-sounding embassy, in which everyone from cleaner to ambassador is driven to wielding the knife on perhaps the most rapidly oxidising figure of the age. |
| The work, if you could call it that, would be a rather farcical sort of tragedy, for who in all seriousness can continue to suppress the odd smirk at the thought of Assange, holed up with his sunbed and his computer and his radioactive self-regard – a sort of diplomatic parody of the former Crystal Palace chairman Simon Jordan? Many natural allies will recall the various moments at which they first realised they would have to work incredibly hard not to giggle at the WikiLeaks founder. A friend cites that 2010 snap of him celebrating his bail at the Frontline Club in London by being photographed with a martini. Less Skyfall, more Pratfall. | The work, if you could call it that, would be a rather farcical sort of tragedy, for who in all seriousness can continue to suppress the odd smirk at the thought of Assange, holed up with his sunbed and his computer and his radioactive self-regard – a sort of diplomatic parody of the former Crystal Palace chairman Simon Jordan? Many natural allies will recall the various moments at which they first realised they would have to work incredibly hard not to giggle at the WikiLeaks founder. A friend cites that 2010 snap of him celebrating his bail at the Frontline Club in London by being photographed with a martini. Less Skyfall, more Pratfall. |
| This week, we learned he had shed another high-profile supporter, Jemima Khan. It's been a while since we heard from the Ecuadorian ambassador, initially so keen on her houseguest, but it is difficult not to read between the lines of Her Excellency's November suggestion that Assange must be allowed to leave for medical treatment, and not wonder whether by then she had the terminal ministrations of an NHS geriatric ward in mind. Eventually the embassy staff may be revealed as suffering from a perversion of Stockholm syndrome, when those doing the house arresting fall so deeply out of love with their victim that the only cure is to extradite him to the Swedish capital. | |
| Before we go any further, I'm warned that any criticism of Assange will land me in the doghouse with those somehow still able to take him 100% seriously, and may even cause a section of commentators to suspect I am part of some Guardian plot against him. The reality is a thousand times less intriguing, alas, and may even land me in the doghouse with the Guardian. | Before we go any further, I'm warned that any criticism of Assange will land me in the doghouse with those somehow still able to take him 100% seriously, and may even cause a section of commentators to suspect I am part of some Guardian plot against him. The reality is a thousand times less intriguing, alas, and may even land me in the doghouse with the Guardian. |
| You see, I am dimly aware of all sorts of articles about this newspaper's break-up with Assange, but I have to confess to not being abreast of their import. I do look at the headlines and make quarter-arsed mental notes to read them later in order to stay au courant, but the inelegant truth of it is that I never do because it just sounds like such an absolutely massive bore-off. There are apparently even two films in which this paper's dysfunctional relationship with Assange will feature at some level, which means there'll be one more box office receipt for whatever else is playing at my local cineplex at the time of their release. (Films featuring the Guardian aren't really what I go to the movies for. It was awfully sweet of Jason Bourne to try and help my fictional colleague in The Bourne Ultimatum, but I would have preferred him to have had rather more riveting things to do with his time.) | You see, I am dimly aware of all sorts of articles about this newspaper's break-up with Assange, but I have to confess to not being abreast of their import. I do look at the headlines and make quarter-arsed mental notes to read them later in order to stay au courant, but the inelegant truth of it is that I never do because it just sounds like such an absolutely massive bore-off. There are apparently even two films in which this paper's dysfunctional relationship with Assange will feature at some level, which means there'll be one more box office receipt for whatever else is playing at my local cineplex at the time of their release. (Films featuring the Guardian aren't really what I go to the movies for. It was awfully sweet of Jason Bourne to try and help my fictional colleague in The Bourne Ultimatum, but I would have preferred him to have had rather more riveting things to do with his time.) |
| So if you must see a conspiracy in all of this, is it not time that you considered the increasingly more credible one? Namely, that Julian Assange is a creation and agent of the global right, specifically designed to make the left look ridiculous. Assange ... the very name seems a sledgehammer hybrid of ass and angel, and with each balcony scene or face-saving desertion of a celebrity supporter, whichever CIA mastermind conceived Julian in a petri dish must be rubbing his hands with glee. | So if you must see a conspiracy in all of this, is it not time that you considered the increasingly more credible one? Namely, that Julian Assange is a creation and agent of the global right, specifically designed to make the left look ridiculous. Assange ... the very name seems a sledgehammer hybrid of ass and angel, and with each balcony scene or face-saving desertion of a celebrity supporter, whichever CIA mastermind conceived Julian in a petri dish must be rubbing his hands with glee. |
| Quite where his narrative arc now goes is unclear. I suppose he might attempt to shoot his way out of his Knightsbridge bolthole like one half of Butch and Sundance, perhaps using a weapon fashioned from bits of his sunlamp and a USB stick. (It's certainly something The A-Team would have been able to come up with had they been holed up there for even an afternoon.) Certainly, if the attention continues to wane, the tractor-beam of the limelight will become harder to resist, and we should expect what Assange imagines to be the unexpected. | Quite where his narrative arc now goes is unclear. I suppose he might attempt to shoot his way out of his Knightsbridge bolthole like one half of Butch and Sundance, perhaps using a weapon fashioned from bits of his sunlamp and a USB stick. (It's certainly something The A-Team would have been able to come up with had they been holed up there for even an afternoon.) Certainly, if the attention continues to wane, the tractor-beam of the limelight will become harder to resist, and we should expect what Assange imagines to be the unexpected. |
| And so it goes on. How can it be that the man who shot to fame engaged in a swashbuckling, sublimely modern form of secret-busting has caused his former allies to wince at his name, as one might over a particularly misguided and naff teenage crush? Clearly there are all sort of complex legal, moral, philosophical and psychological answers to that question, which I'll leave to cleverer people to unravel. The quick answer is that Assange seems quite insufferable, certainly in any sort of long term. | And so it goes on. How can it be that the man who shot to fame engaged in a swashbuckling, sublimely modern form of secret-busting has caused his former allies to wince at his name, as one might over a particularly misguided and naff teenage crush? Clearly there are all sort of complex legal, moral, philosophical and psychological answers to that question, which I'll leave to cleverer people to unravel. The quick answer is that Assange seems quite insufferable, certainly in any sort of long term. |
| If one subscribes to the view that only an ultimately insufferable narcissist could have had the balls to do what he did, then it was always going to come to this. But when so very few come out of a story well, from star to supporters, perhaps a mirthless laugh is the only option left. | If one subscribes to the view that only an ultimately insufferable narcissist could have had the balls to do what he did, then it was always going to come to this. But when so very few come out of a story well, from star to supporters, perhaps a mirthless laugh is the only option left. |